The Florida SMaSH Beer Festival celebrates the “creativity and camaraderie of the brewers in the Sunshine State” by asking all participating breweries to create a SMaSH beer, a brew of any style that is created with a single malt and single hop. Although all breweries will be required to use only Golden Promise malt and Hallertau Blanc hops in their brew, this limitation actually serves as a creative playground for the brewers as they develop a recipe that will allow them to stand out and make an impression on the drinker.

Not only will this event feature exclusive, one-off SMaSH beers from all participating breweries, but there will also be a SMaSH beer competition – voted on by attendees – to crown a winner of the festival, a selection of other special brews pouring during the event, and the event will also act as a fundraiser to benefit the very worthy cause of The Sharing Center. Since this event has quite a few moving parts, let’s break it down:

“With the spirit of SMaSH brewing so heavily steeped in the home brewing tradition, our festival will feature a friendly competition between brewers, judged solely by the attendees. Each attendee will receive three voting tokens to distribute among their favorite entries. Winners will take home a very unique prize.”

General Admission: $35 – Ticket grants you admittance into the festival, a commemorative tasting glass, and unlimited samples of over 80 local craft beers

VIP: $75 – VIP ticket allows you to enter the festival one hour early for a private brewers lunch and brewery bottle tasting, a commemorative tasting glass, and unlimited samples of over 80 local craft beers

The Cause

A portion of ticket sales will go to benefit The Sharing Center, a top-rated 501c3 non-profit organization that focuses on preventing hunger and homelessness for families and individuals in crisis by offering a hand-up to the working-poor in Seminole County and those who are struggling to move out of homelessness.

Alright, that should pretty much cover all the needed information concerning this event. If your calendar is open on March 13 and you happen to be in the area, we highly recommend that you consider checking out the Florida SMaSH Beer Festival. SMaSH beers act as a fantastic educational tool that allows the drinker to gain a better understanding of specific brewing ingredients, and a festival of this size will also highlight the scope of the artistic creativity thriving within our local brewing community. Throw in the fact that you will be supporting a local non-profit while enjoying all of these tasty brews, and you really cannot go wrong here. Make it happen, folks. Prost!